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KSL (radio)
'''KSL Newsradio is a radio programming service based in Salt Lake City, Utah. It's broadcast simultaneously on AM station KSL (1160 kHz @ 50,000 watts) & FM station KSL-FM (102.7 MHz, Midvale). Both stations are owned by Bonneville International Corporation, which is in turn owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). KSL's AM signal reaches most of the western US @ night, as well as some areas in western Canada. History Originally designated with the call letters KZN, KSL began life as the radio arm of the Deseret News, a Salt Lake City newspaper also owned by the LDS Church. The station's first broadcast came on May 6, 1922 in the form of a talk by then-LDS Church president Heber J. Grant. In 1924, it changed it's calls to KFPT & then adopted it's current call letters, with their association to Salt Lake, in 1925 after they became available (they had previously been used by an early radio station in Alaska). A series of power boosts over the next decade brought the station to it's current 50,000 watts (daytime broadcast power) in 1932. It spent time @ several frequencies over the years before settling @ 1160 kHz in 1941. It can be heard across much of the country west of the Mississippi River @ night. Soon after becoming a clear-channel station, it joined the CBS Radio Network. It remained with CBS until 2005, when it switched to ABC. The station's owners made their initial foray into FM broadcasting in 1947 when they brought KSL-FM onto the then-very-sparsely-populated FM dial @ 100.3 mH. The FM station format was beautiful music, a contrast to the then-current KSL format of news & commentary interspersed with adult contemporary music. The FM station was sold to a private owner in the mid-1970s due to FCC regulations on station ownership (which have since been greatly relaxed). The station, now known as KSFI, was re-acquired by the KSL ownership group in 2003. The station's owners made their entrance to the field of TV broadcasting when they launched KSL-TV (Ch. 5) in 1949. The TV station was also affiliated with the TV arm of the Columbia Broadcasting System. KSL-TV switched affiliation to NBC in 1995. KSL's most famous program -- Music & the Spoken Word with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (the oldest series in nationwide network broadcasting), continues to be distributed by CBS Radio to this day. It airs each Sunday @ 9:30 AM local time (11:30 AM on the East Coast). It's also broadcast on TV on KSL-TV (to the local market) & worldwide on BYU Television & the Hallmark Channel. Another notable program was Herb Jepko's Nitecaps, which began in the 1960s & was 1 of the first US radio stations to be syndicated nationally. KSL is also the only radio station that broadcasts every BYU football & men's basketball game. In the mid-1980s KSL adopted an all-talk format, completely dropping it's broadcast of music (except for the Tabernacle Choir broadcast). On September 3 2005, KSL began simulcasting @ 102.7 MHz FM, replacing KQMB (STAR 102.7, also owned by Bonneville), a hot adult contemporary station. Bonneville says this was done to make it easier for people to listen to the station inside office buildings (assuming the FM signal could more easily penetrate such structures) & because STAR 102.7 had been losing market share since the first of the year (although, according to ratings it was still 1 of the top stations in it's market segment). See also *KSL-TV External links *KSL Newsradio's Website *Story about the new FM signal *KSL's tower along with other signals in the area